Californians Campaign Where the Action Is

Karen Harryman is certain that California will go for John F. Kerry on election day, so the high school English teacher drove nearly 300 miles to sway voters in the battleground state of Nevada.

“I’m tired of wanting things to be different and never having done anything about it,” Harryman, 35, said as she sat on a Las Vegas union hall floor, grabbing lunch with her husband between shifts at a Democratic phone bank.

The Burbank resident is one of thousands of Democrats and Republicans from so-called “safe states” who are paying their own way to walk precincts and staff phone banks in the battlegrounds of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Colorado.

“There’s a greater sense of urgency,” said Ricardo Ramirez, a political science professor at USC, explaining why this year there are so many people like Harryman willing to give up their weekends to volunteer in other states. “It’s that sense of fulfillment, of making a difference.”

Harryman and her husband were among more than 300 Kerry supporters from Southern California who came to Las Vegas last weekend with a goal of knocking on more than 8,000 doors and making 17,000 phone calls.

“This election has energized California voters like never before,” said Nathan Ballard, state spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “What we are seeing is while Republicans are writing checks, Democrats are lacing up their walking shoes.”

But across town, Republicans were doing the same for President Bush. About 250 supporters from California and Utah went door-to-door and made phone calls for the Bush reelection effort.

“Some of these states that are safe states for us, they want to contribute more than just going to the polls and voting for the president,” said Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party. “They know that here in Nevada, it’s all about turnout.”

A Republican group called the Mighty Texas Strike Force also has been making battleground visits. About 2,000 volunteers will have worked in Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania by the time America votes Tuesday.

“They are confident that Texas is going to be in the president’s column,” said Karen Johnson, coordinator for the group. “They are voting before they leave, and then they’re going to spread the good word to battleground states.”

Like other tightly contested states, Nevada with its five electoral votes has drawn unprecedented attention this year. Voter registration is almost even in the state, and each side is trying to gain any advantage it can in a race that polls show as extremely close.

Arriving a week ago in a cavalcade of cars and buses at the union hall far from the Las Vegas Strip, the Democratic volunteers from Southern California were given boxed lunches before their marching orders.

“If we knock on enough doors and we make enough calls, we will win Nevada and we will win the United States,” organizer Joe Green, 21, told the cheering crowd.

From a state where Kerry leads Bush by double digits, the California volunteers say they are desperate to make a difference this election year.

“I want to know that I did everything I could, that I did something,” Harryman said before she left for her second phone bank shift, asking registered Democrats if they had cast ballots in the state’s early voting program.

“It’s humbling for paid staffers to see people that committed to this campaign,” said Sean Smith, Nevada spokesman for the Kerry campaign.

California Assemblyman Joe Nation (D-San Rafael), who has led groups of Kerry supporters to Oregon and Ohio in the last few weeks, said he hasn’t seen Democrats this energized in 12 years.

“But it was different. In 1992, people, at least in my area, did not pack their bags to go to Ohio for a week and a half,” said Nation, who is with four other Californians in Youngstown, Ohio, for the duration of the campaign.

Because California is almost a sure thing for Kerry, volunteers and resources can be sent where they are needed, Nation said.

“We don’t have to spend as much time as we normally would turning out voters in California,” he said.

Back in Las Vegas, while Harryman staffed the phone bank, her husband, Kirker Butler, drove a van of college-age volunteers to an impoverished neighborhood east of downtown.

Butler, 33, a television writer, said he felt an obligation to do whatever he could for the Kerry campaign. He and his wife had planned to fly to Oregon that weekend, but heard they were needed more in Las Vegas.

“I never imagined that it would have to come down to traveling to another state,” Butler said. “Not to sound like a campaign ad, but it’s fighting for the future. So much is at stake.”

Walking a precinct with Butler were three students from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Kristy Steffens, 20, a junior English major, said she didn’t consider the trip to Las Vegas during a four-day school holiday to be a sacrifice.

“I don’t feel like I’m giving up anything,” said Steffens, of Twain Harte, Calif. “People say this is the most important election of our time. ... I feel like I’m a part of something.”